Japan diaries 4: Hiroshima

After Kyoto we took the Shinkansen to Hiroshima, a place we’d heard a lot of. Hiroshima is, no doubt, most famous for being the first actual city in the history of the world to be the target of an atomic bomb. The people of Hiroshima recall this event mainly as a positive one, however, and everything related to the bomb is prefixed with “peace” rather than “bomb” — for example, the park located near the site is called Peace Memorial Park, and the museum is called Peace Memorial Museum, the bell is called Peace Bell and the… You get the idea.

We went to see the sites and stroll around in the park, and it was very beautiful and compelling, and the bombed out building that had been preserved to serve as an example of how nuclear destruction looks was a very moving sight.

We also rang the Peace Bell, placed in the middle of the park to emanate the signals of peace out into the world, by people all over the world.

Dystopian stories like Fallout and the like have however lied to us: Life is easily attainable in the wake of a nuclear bombing. Nuclear weapons are a far smaller threat to the life on earth than accidents like Tjernobyl, for example, as people are living all over the nuclear site of Hiroshima today without trouble, only a few landmarks kept intact to remind people of the terrible toll of war.

Atomic nightlife
My twentieth birthday was on the 14th of July, the day we arrived in Hiroshima, so naturally we’d have to hit the nightlife and have a good time. It was however a rather dull wednesday, so not many clubs were open, and the ones that were had zip people in them. We started out by getting some fancy dinner, a crab restaurant in a very nice Japanese styled building with traditionally dressed staff.

The food was a bit odd, and much of it was probably an acquired taste, but the experience was nice and authentic, so I do not regret going there.

We then hit a bar, containing one patron, and then went out to search for some clubs, before allying ourselves with a dude apparantly charged with helping tourists with directing them to places where they can spend absurd amounts of money on nothing at all — just what we needed. He directed us to a Club Diva, which is a hostess club with kareoke.

Now a Hostess club is basically a club in which you pay an entry fee and then you are entertained by what amounts to a modern geisha: a girl that talks to you, asks question about your ever-exciting life and laughs at your jokes. We hit two of these clubs before giving up on clubbing and instead looking for a pub with some life in it, but not before singing Bohemian Rhapsody on the kareoke system to much applause.

We did find a pub with some people in it, although they were all tourists like us — but it was nice to finally meet some english speaking people. There were a couple of australians and a couple of americans, and both groups were fun to talk to before we called it a night.

Oriental Hotel Hiroshima
Last but not least a few words about our hotel in Hiroshima. As we were staying there for my birthday, and only were staying there for a few days, we figured we could splurge a bit on the budget and book a nice hotel for those two nights. This was not a mistake, as we found something incredibly cheap yet very satisfying.

Located on 16th floor with a nice view to the skyline of Hiroshima with a nice bathroom and a very good bed, polite staff and beautiful interior, we felt like a couple of hobos in a palace. A culture shock, to say the least.

So far, so good. Hiroshima was a nice experience, but I’d rather go to Kyoto if I ever return to this country. Next up will be training with Shihan Midori in Fukuoka.